All posts tagged Shenzhen

Hong Kong is the world’s most-visited city for international travelers, thanks to a growing influx of visitors from mainland China, according to a new study. The city drew 23.8 million visitors in 2012, outpacing Singapore (21.3 million) and Bangkok (15.8 million). Arrivals to Hong Kong from the mainland made up 63.5% of all visitors to the city. Read More »

The launch of a new $1.39 billion, Italian-designed terminal at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport marks this southern Chinese city’s ambition to tap the region’s rapidly growing demand for air traffic. Read More »

China’s southern breadbasket region is getting not one, but two sprawling megabridges in a tussle for regional influence between Hong Kong and the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen; growing competition between the service and industrial sector for migrant workers is contributing to China’s tightest labor market in years, putting upward pressure on wages that already are rising in the double digits annually.

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999) and editor of “The Evolution of Law Reform in China: An Uncertain Path” (Elgar, 2012).

As of March 1, dog owners in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen who disobey a new law mandating the use of “pet restrooms” are subject to an $80 fine. According to another new regulation approved in Beijing late last year, children are required to visit elderly parents “often.”

These and other recent legal developments – including a pair of domestic violence cases with wildly different outcomes – illustrate how unprecedented social changes in China are provoking new questions about the role of law in society, and creating problems for law-makers, citizens and courts alike. Read More »

Got milk formula? If you can’t find any in your local supermarket, Hong Kong’s government is telling parents, ‘just give us a call.’

Over the weekend, the government began manning a temporary 24-hour hotline helping parents order milk formula, which has nearly disappeared off shelves in some areas thanks to the crush of mainland Chinese shoppers preparing for Chinese Lunar New Year. In its first two days of operation, it received more than 3,800 calls, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-Man said Sunday. Read More »

In recent months Hon Hai Precision Industries Co., or Foxconn as it is better known, has done an about-face with its public relations policy, opening its doors to several different Western media companies, including The Wall Street Journal. In the past, the secretive assembler of electronics for global brands like Apple Inc. and Nintendo has only infrequently allowed foreign media inside its city-sized factory campuses.

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

The new media blitz is the second act in Hon Hai’s public makeover, following the publication in March of findings from an audit carried out by the Fair Labor Association and an ensuing pledge by the company to improve overtime, health and safety violations found by the investigation.

The Wall Street Journal visited Hon Hai’s “campus” in Shenzhen – home to more than 200,000 workers – in early December. On the day we visited, Hon Hai said they were conducting an audit, which meant we weren’t able to visit the main production facilities. We were, however, able to see the kitchen, a dormitory, the employee care center, and a cafeteria among other locations on campus – places that provided interesting insights into the everyday lives of the workers who churn out some of the world’s most popular electronics products. Read More »

Russell Leigh Moses is the Dean of Academics and Faculty at The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.

China, as a leading commentary in People’s Daily noted on Friday, has “climbed a high mountain,” but it is still “walking a tightrope.”

Now with his first ramble as new Communist Party leader behind him, Xi Jinping likewise will be scrambling not to slip.

Xi’s itinerary this week involved two significant stops: The first in Shenzhen, the manufacturing boomtown linked the famous “Southern Tour” Deng Xiaoping took in 1992 to jumpstart economic reforms that stalled in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and the second at the Guangzhou Military Region Headquarters, home of those in the People’s Liberation Army who are most directly involved in protecting China’s interest in the hotly contested South China Sea.

The trip to Shenzhen has garnered significant attention in both Chinese and Western media – and deservedly so. But in many ways, it was his meeting with the military in Guangzhou that was more revealing, in terms both of his political aims and of the challenges he faces in trying to achieve them. Read More »

Back in August, when Communist Party chief Xi Jinping – then the leader-in-waiting – dropped out of public view, cancelling meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other visiting dignitaries on short notice, there was no official explanation, leading to more than a little speculation about his health. Privately officials described him as having hurt his back while swimming.

Perhaps a water mishap is still in his thoughts. This week, on his first official tour since he became the Communist Party’s general secretary, Mr. Xi urged his comrades to show courage and continue to push ahead with reforms, even though they are now heading for the “deep water” section. As far as reforms go, now comes the hard part, he was saying.

Since taking the reins of the Communist Party last month, Mr. Xi has chosen his words — and his symbols — carefully. Read More »

The sheer scale of China’s change over the last three decades tends to overwhelm attempts at analysis. One way to cut through the fog is to focus on a specific location.

In their new book, “Chinese Village, Global Market: New Collectives and Rural Development,” that’s exactly what Harvard’s Tony Saich and Beijing Normal’s Biliang Hu set out to do.

Over 189 richly detailed pages, Mr. Saich and Mr. Hu, delve into the mix of economic, social and cultural factors that shape the development of Yantian, a village in southern China’s Pearl River Delta, as it rode the wave of China’s rise.

China Real Time caught up with Mr. Saich and threatened to deny him urban residency rights unless he answered our eight questions. Read More »

Expert Insight

China’s territorial ambitions in the East and South China seas are by now well-documented. Much less understood is one of the key factors in the country’s ability to realize those ambitions: an increasingly well-funded and capable maritime militia.

The U.S. has been urging allies to steer clear of Asia's new China-led infrastructure investment bank. Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank, calls that approach mistaken on multiple levels.

Can legal reform and Communist Party control coexist in a way that will benefit Chinese governance and society?This is the question that confronts the country in the wake of its annual legislative gathering.

China's just-concluded legislative sessions seem to be another example of the deinstitutionalization of politics under Xi Jinping. Months from now, these meetings won’t be seen as harbingers of reform, so much as another lost opportunity, writes CRT analyst Russell Moses.

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